Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-02-25

Safely through another week
God has brought US on our way;
Let us now blessing seek
Waiting in His courts to- day.
Professor Henry Eyre Brown, the or
ganist, rendered SatZ No. /, in G minor,
by Thiele.
After u running commentary on eppro-
pirate passages Of scripture, the Rev. 7.
Dewitt Teimage, d. D, took for his text
''And he changed his behavior before
them, and feigued himself mad in their
hands, and scrabbled on the door OF the
gate, and let his spittle fall down upon his
beard. III. Sam, xxi, -. He said:
There is one scene in the life of DAVID
that you may not have pOndered. You
have seen him with harp playing the
devil out of Saul; with sling, smashing
the skull of Goliath; with a sword, hack
ing to pieces the Philistines; with SCep-
ter, ruling vast realm; with psalm,
gathering all nations into doXology; but
in my text, you have David playing the
fool. He has been anointed King, yet he
is in exile and passing incognito among
the Gathites. They begin to suspect who
he is, and say: 81 wonder if this is not
the warrior, King David? 1t looks like
him. Is not this the man about whom
they used to make poetry, and about
whom they composed dance, so that the
maidens of the city, Keeling now on one
foot and now on the other, used to
sing: Saul has slain his thousands, but
David has slain his tens of thousands2'
Yes, it is very much like David. 1t must
be David. 1t is David" David, to es-
cape their hands, pretends to be de-
mented. He said within himself: "If l
act crafty then of course these people
will not injure me. No one would be so
much of a coward as to assault mad
man." So, one day, while these Gath
ties are watching David with increased
suspicion, they see him standing by the
door running his hands mean
inglessly up and down the
panels screbbling OF the door
as though he would climb up, his mouth
wide open, drooling like an infant. l
suppose the boys of the streets threw
missiles at him; but the sober people of
the town said: "This is not fair. Do
you not see that he has lost his reason?
Do not touch this mailman. Hands off
hands off" So David escaped; but
what IN exhibition he made of himself
before all the ages! There was a majesty
in King Lear's madness after Regau and
Goneril, his daughters, had persuaded
him to Danish their sister Cordelia, and
all the friends of the drama have been
thrilled with that spectacular. The
craziness of Meg MerriIlies was weird
and imposing, and the most t-llIng pas
sage In Walter Scott's "Guy Mannering"
There was fascination about the insan-
ity of Alexander Cruden, who made the
best concordance of the Bible that the
world ever saw-made it between the
madhouses. Some time ago, while was
visiting the insane asylum st BlaCkwell's
Island, demented woman came up to me
and said, in most tragic style:
God moves in a mysterious way,
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.
But there was nothing grand, nothing
weird, nothing majestic, nothing sub
lime ABOUT this stimulation on
the part of David. Instead of trusting in
the Lord, as he had on other occasions,
he gathers before him vast audience of
all generations that were to come. and
standing or that conspicuous stage of
history, in the presence Of all the ages.
he impersonates the slavering idiot!
"And he changed his behavior before
them, and feigned himself mad in their
hands, and scrabbled at the door of the
gate, and let his spittle fall upon his
beard"
Taking the behavior of David as sug-
gestion, wish to tell you how many of
the wise, and the brave, and the regal
sometimes play the fool. And in the first
place, remark, that those men as badly |
play the fool as this man of the text, who |
IN any crisis of life take their case out of |
the hand of God. David, in this case,
acted as though there were no God to lift
MIN out Of the predicament. WHAT con-
trast between his behavior. when this
Grave little man stood up in front of the
giant ten feet in height, and looking into
MS face, said: "Thou contest to me with
q sword, and with q spear, ana with
shield; but come to thee in the name of
the Lord of Hosts, the God of the armies
OF Israel, whom thou hast deied. This
day VIII the Lord deliver thee into nine
nano, and | will smite thee, and take
thine mead from thee, and l Will give the
carcases OF the hosts of the Philistines
tAls Gay unto the fowls OF the air, and to
ne wild beasts Of the earth, that all the
earth may know that there is God in {
srael '-oetWeen that time and this time, I
when he debssed himself, and bedraggled
lis manhood, and effected insanity in Or /
Ter that he might ascape from the grip of {
he Gathltes. In the one case he played /
he hero. In the otherca he played the i
col. So does every man who, in the i
rest crisis of life, takes his 4
ase ont of the hand of God. The ! S